She shook her head. “Not inside. Inside I was scared, and you took away that fear. That was why I could stand up to him. That was what delayed him from raping me.”
“Enough time for me to come for you.”
She nodded. “Without that strength I found in myself, things could have been very different.”
The vehicle suddenly stopped and the flashing lights of the ambulance filled the car. Ela looked out the window and recognized the road. It was the junction between her country and Xander’s.
Xander jumped out, opened her door and carried her to the ambulance. But she insisted on standing, on stepping up into the ambulance under her own power, despite the pain.
Xander shouted orders to the ambulance driver. “Sharq Havilah Hospital! As fast as you can.”
“No!” Elaheh’s voice was quiet but commanding. Everyone turned to her. “No. I wish to return to my country,” she said, looking at Xander. Then she turned to the ambulance driver. “Tawazun, please. The palace. Have the medical team meet me there.”
As she was settled into the back of the ambulance, Xander gripped the door and watched. It was only when she and the nurses had settled that he spoke.
“Tawazun?” he asked, in disbelief.
She nodded. “I’m Queen of Tawazun and I will return there. I’ll not cower or hide from anyone, ever again. I’ll stand on my own two feet from now on.”
“But why?”
“Because you showed me I could.”
Xander stepped away, the ambulance lights alternately slicing his face with blood-red and a yellow-gray—both were distorting, both revealed a pain which had Elaheh sitting up, beginning to reach out for him, changing her mind. But, before she could, the doors slammed shut and Xander disappeared from view.
As they drove away she closed her eyes and imagined Xander watching her leave. He’d saved her, he had feelings for her, she knew that. But, ultimately, they had no future. They were both leaders of their respective countries and duty had to come first. If he’d loved her, it might have been different, but he’d made it clear that his heart was buried in the desert alongside the woman he’d loved so many years before. And Xander had awoken in her a heart which needed to be loved and wouldn’t settle for anything less.
It had takenonly months for Elaheh’s physical wounds to heal, but she was still waiting for the emotional pain of her separation from Xander to heal. Some days it was deadened by the constant work and pressure she put herself under as she continued to work hard as leader of her country. Other days—especially at night—the pain was keen like a freshly made knife wound and at those times she despaired.
Last night had been one of those nights. She’d dreamed of him caressing and kissing her, teasing her with his lips and his fingers, and when she’d awoken to an empty bed, breathless with lust, the pain of her loss hit her more sharply than ever.
She rose from her desk, unable to focus.
She knew she loved him, and that he was still in love with a girl who’d died years earlier. But she also knew she was stronger now than she’d ever been; she was a woman able to ask for what she wanted.
She’d worked hard to strengthen her country so it was able to move forward into a future of economic and cultural strength. She’d appointed new advisors who were keen to see Tawazun become the powerful nation it had the potential to be, but had also worked with established figures who would ensure their country’s past wasn’t forgotten. If she could do that successfully, she could do anything.Anything. The word echoed in her brain. Maybe even marry a man she loved with all her heart, but who didn’t love her.
When she’d been driven away from him that night in the ambulance, she’d lied to Xander, and to herself. She’d told him that duty had to come first—her duty to her country. But it had been an excuse. What had come first was her pride. She didn’t want to admit she loved someone who didn’t love her.
But the intervening months had shown her the truth of that old adage, pride comes before a fall. Because while her status as queen and her country had gone from strength to strength, her heart and emotions had been in free fall, and it was only when they’d landed that she knew she couldn’t continue without him. Or at least, she couldn’t continue without asking him for what she wanted. It was her last chance at happiness.
She jumped up and called her assistant. She refused to have another night dreaming of what she wanted, without asking for it. If he said no, she’d move on. Life would never be quite as she wanted it, but she’d make it into something. And… there was a chance he might say yes. And then what a life awaited her! Her heart quickened at the thought. She was determined to use any weapon she had to full advantage. If she had to seduce him first, then she would. Seduce and then propose. It was a daunting plan, but she was no longer a woman to be daunted by anything.
Life feltlike food devoid of flavor since Xander had left Ela. He’d taken little nibbles of it for sustenance, but had soon been put off by its dryness and tastelessness. He wanted fire but there was none to be had anywhere else.
He’d spent the intervening months watching Ela grow in queenship from afar, leading her country on to great things. The video meetings between the leaders of their countries were impersonal things, business-like and brief. He’d barely exchanged half a dozen words with Ela, and they’d been strictly business. The work they’d done earlier on the infrastructure project had been completed and handed on to their administrators. There was no reason for them to be alone together anymore, despite Xander racking his brains, trying to conjure up a reason.
No, Ela no longer needed him. She’d moved on. But had he?
He pushed himself off the chair reluctantly and walked over to the window, and looked out at the darkening sky streaked with apricot from the sun which had slipped behind the indigo horizon. The city which lay before him, and the land which stretched to the blue-hazed mountains, was no longer something to be avoided, something thrust upon him by Roshan. Ever since the massacre of his parents and beloved Selya, he’d hated the place. But hate was the flip side to love and, it seemed, at some point over the past months, his life had done a 180 and landed squarely on the side of love again. And who had brought about that change? One person who’d reached into his heart, squeezed it, shaken it about it a bit, and, in so doing, had resuscitated it.
Absent-mindedly he rubbed his chest, where his heart beat with a life which was more than the physical pumping supply of blood around his body. This new heart of his affected everything he did—from his interactions with his people, to his decisions about their welfare, to his love for his brother and his growing family. But this new heart of his also felt pain now. Especially at night, when he had nothing to fill his mind, no busyness to occupy his thoughts. Then, like now, the absence of the woman he loved, and who no longer needed him, crept into every corner of his being, poking his newly found sensitivity, and finding it raw and needy.
He closed his eyes against the sea breeze which had quickened as the sun had set and imagined her voice. Even from the beginning he’d enjoyed listening to her. He smiled to himself as he remembered how much she’d irritated him. But now he knew that the irritation was because even then, she’d hit that place he’d protected so keenly.
He closed his eyes even more tightly as he imagined her saying his name, as she climaxed in his arms. It aroused him like nothing else. He didn’t know why he taunted himself. But he couldn’t help himself.
Then he heard his name again. Her soft, breathy, sultry tones seemed more real somehow. He shook his head and gripped the edge of the window, willing himself to accept reality, to banish the voice from his brain. But it came again. Closer this time. He opened his eyes wide and turned around.